The Essay Snowball
by aimoon
Summary: Snape's grading is out of control. ONESHOT.


Disclaimer: I wish I could make money doing this, but I don't, so don't get clever with the legal action. I don't own anything.

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Events had snowballed. That was the word for it, snowballed. Severus Snape had never actually made a giant snowball for a snowman, but he had seen others gather the first little bits of snow and then roll it until it became a great mass of white moving under its own momentum, uncontrollable. Snowballed indeed.

Everything had started out innocently enough. Frankly, he lived fairly ascetically and one of the few pleasures he got from his day to day was ripping to inky-shreds the slop of student essays turned in to him. Big, glowing red scratches that blotted out their stupidity and spiky, cramped, written reminders of their faults left his fingertips stained and his soul calm in a way that made him almost giddy. It was a simple pleasure, but one that got him through the week.

Of course, he couldn't be left this bit of solace, someone had to come along and ruin everything. The little nuisance hadn't been satisfied to take her defaced essay and grumble about it to her friends later. The stupid girl thought the marks were there for her benefit, to help her improve. She was constantly needling him for reasons on _why_ was this wrong, and couldn't she please redo it and turn it in again? She actually read his comments and took notes on them, notes for gods-sake! After class she'd sometimes even rush down to his desk to ask if he could please read this essay before they had to turn it in so she could make it better, make it worth perfect marks.

And damn it if over the years she didn't get better. The laundry list of facts was replaced with well-reasoned ideas. The endless parchment of drivel became concise and direct. He struggled to find defects, anything, even spelling errors, on which to unleash a hellfire of pent-up fury. Each essay was harder to grade than the last. Each year he hated her more for it. Her essays even took the joy out of grading other students' work as well since their dull, worthless essays only become fresh reminders of just how irritatingly _perfect_ hers had become. He was less and less able to justify filling her assignments with red swaths of hate.

Still, she remained as persistent as ever. Any slight against her work would bring her resolutely before him. _How should she fix this paragraph? Oh, she was so sorry for the misuse of that word, she could of sworn that was right, she'd know better next time._ She was so eager, so convinced that one day she would be able to fix _everything_ and meet his impossible standards. As her essays had improved, and she became proportionately more eager for praise, Snape had found that depriving her of her much wanted approval was very satisfying. In particular, he had discovered that debasing her in person of any notion that she had improved was drastically more fulfilling than leaving her nasty comments on parchment alone. The look in her brown eyes, the pleading, as she tried over and over again to draw any hint of approval out of him was delicious. Even though grading had lost most of its pleasure now, he found that he could still wring a wonderfully smug sense of self-satisfaction out of denying her any sense of accomplishment.

He would have scoffed at the accusation that he was assigning more work than he would have normally done for her class. It _was_ an advanced level class. No part of him would admit he was scowling viciously at all of her attempts to find what he wanted in the hope that she would never find it, and stay needing him just that little bit longer. He made excuses to himself to be in the library, where she could once again assail him with her desperate need to be right in _his_ eyes. Each new essay and she became more insistent, more urgent for his approval and he soaked all of her desperation up with ever more glee. He spent idle hours thinking of new ways to dismiss her triumphs and remind her minuscule mistakes. He enjoyed imagining her bright, honest face looking to him in the hope that one day he'd finally reward her with her due commendation. Somehow he knew that she'd _never_ give this fight up, no matter what it did to her.

Then, in her last year as a student, she ruined everything all over again. A worthless, busy-work assignment on some fungus removal potion that nobody cared about became a perfect specimen of disturbingly interesting essay gold in her nimble hands. She had to have spent every waking minute of the last week researching, writing and editing it. Gods knows how much parchment she must have used. There were no mistakes, there was nothing left out, nothing overwrought, nothing boring or overly excited. It was perfect, and Snape could not have been more livid.

He could not give the damn thing the marks it deserved. If he gave her his approval she wouldn't need it anymore, she'd be off making herself perfect for someone else. The thought of her no longer coming to him, not seeking him out, not needing him, even if it was just for these silly school essays, was intolerable. He needed this now, needed her now to look at him with hope and faith like no one else did. It had all gotten out of his control to stop, moving on its own momentum. Snowballed indeed.

He dipped the quill into the dark red ink and stopped with the quill hovering over the page, readying himself to deface the bothersome thing. As he perused the first paragraph again, a single red drop slowly collected on the tip of the quill. He watched, seemingly unable to stop it, as the bright red ink broke free and descended to the parchment to make a great, ugly stain over her clean, perfect essay.

_Oh gods, what was he doing?_

He'd marred her perfect essay. He'd blemished something she'd poured her heart into making wonderful, something perfect and good. Only because he'd wanted to.

_Just like he'd done with her. _

Even with the dark circles under her eyes, the near constant worried frown she now wore and the sickly size she'd withered to, her once bright eyes still looked at him like she believed he'd make her good, something right, something perfect.

Instead, he'd marred her, twisted her faith in him and used her. He had defaced something perfect. Only because he'd wanted to.

The anger and self-loathing rushed up as he grabbed the quill in both hands and snapped it in two, throwing the pieces across the room in a rage.

His forehead landed none too gently on the edge of the desk, eyes screwed shut against everything. He willed himself to not see her desperate, eager brown eyes anymore. When he finally opened his own eyes, he could only see the blood red color that covered his hands.

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AN: I really hate grading. Thanks for reading.


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